I'm back from FlashForward and thought I'd jot down some random thoughts. I'm not going to attempt anything cohesive because.. well.. I didn't get a lot of sleep this week and then got back home on one of those cross country red-eye flights that seem to suck clear thoughts right out of me.

I checked The Goog for the responses of other people and saw that Caleb was blogging. He was swapping name tags with folks after the "supper club" party Wednesday night and I ended up with his name tag and one of his Fire business cards so it was cool to see that he posted some info about Jared Ficklin finally getting to play with some fire at the dinner.

Jens from Flash Magazine has a short article about the festival winners saying he'd heard that the single track format went well.. and Keith Peters seemed to enjoy it.. but Alex Bustin didn't totally agree with that.

Marty and Anthony blogged about the conference and gave a rundown of some of the sessions..

My thoughts on the conference?

Whew.. um.. this was the first FlashForward I'd been to since I presented at the SF FF back in 2004.. that was ages ago. I really enjoyed seeing the people who inspired me, pushed me, helped me, etc.. to get to where I am today. It was cool that most of those folks recognized me (or at least pretended to), and spent a good bit of time talking to me. Oh, and even cooler was being included in activities outside of the main conference with those folks. It was a real honor.

I thought it was interesting that one of the presenters asked how many people in the audience had Computer Science degrees and only about a dozen people raised their hands. The crowd hasn't changed since the early days, and I expect many of the newcomers with CS degrees are showing up at the Flex conferences. ? I came to Flash through art (yeah.. the design of my site sucks.. I know..) and was taught that to be an amateur is perfectly fine. I have no doubt that many folks out at the conference with Masters or PHDs in CS would consider most of the presenters at FlashForward to be amateurs at coding. I'm cool with that. How many inventions were made by amateurs in their basements? How many discoveries in astronomy and chemistry were made by amateurs? And it seemed like at least 4 of the presenters made a point of saying that they came from some totally different background besides CS and don't consider themselves to be experts in programming. I think it goes back to what a lot of the presenters who have been at this a long time said. In the early days of Flash everyone was learning this from scratch and it was all total experimentation. That sense of adventure and hacking is what kept the creative (and masochistic) types interested and scared away the more traditional.

The single track program worked for me because I only saw a couple of presentations that didn't really interest me or do anything for me. Having to sit through a few 20 minute sessions that I didn't connect with was fine because the rest were interesting. It's all about passion. I had a teacher in art school who told me that if you're going to survive in art you must be passionate about it. It has to be the first thing you want to do in the morning, and the last thing you want to do at night. I'm pretty sure most of the presenters (if not all.. well. . now.. Todd said he was lazy but I don't believe him) have that kind of passion about their work and it showed.

I heard a few people (both newcomers and old veterans) who were disappointed in the amount of code or "tutorial" style presentations there were. I can understand that because I'm the type of learner who learns from watching others do stuff.. but I also remembered from past conferences that the real value is in who you meet and connect with at the conference. I went to the bowling party and saw almost everyone there really enjoying themselves and talking to other people. It's those live and in-person connections with other people from all over the world that can make going to a conference worthwhile.

The party Thursday night at Ruby Skye was great.. especially if you were able to find the quiet room up on the second floor where the pool tables were. I got to talk to Rob Bateman (of Away3D fame) and it was nice to be able to carry on a conversation without having to yell over the music. But.. Now, I did enjoy that bass they were cranking out.